when the wicked play
by vindictive trollop
Summary: Regina's vault is far too crowded for Maleficent's liking. Cruella keeps brushing up against her and Ursula is making it quite apparent that she's a loud drunk. dragon queen / background sea devil.


**I happened to watch 4x15 more than once in one sitting and found myself just writing and writing and writing. This is a mess. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it. And it used to be longer before I shortened it significantly. I know. What a horrible thought. Anyway, I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to see all of them getting drunk together (and making out, because you know it happened) in Regina's vault so I decided to write it for myself.**

**I am constantly fascinated with this relationship, aren't you?**

—

Regina's vault is far too crowded for Maleficent's liking. Cruella keeps brushing up against her and Ursula is making it quite apparent that she's a loud drunk. Regina is significantly calmer than the other two, and yet out of the four of them, Maleficent's quite certain that she is the only one whose mind isn't foggy with an alcohol-induced haze; and she'll be the better for it in the morning, too. Maleficent cuts out a corner in the vault for herself away from the other three and it isn't long at all before Regina goes to her. It's understandable; Cruella and Ursula have begun flirting— and flirting, with them, leads to kissing. With any luck, they'll leave before kissing leads to _other_ things.

She does so miss her fortress, she decides as Regina sits by her on some locked crate. It had been wide and open and no one inhabited it but herself, a few choice guards, the maids and the cook. It had been quiet because everyone knew that she preferred it that way; it had been cold, for in the mountains it always snowed and stormed relentlessly, and Storybrooke is nothing like it at all. Storybrooke is nothing like the Forest. It's too small, too cramped. It's _quaint_. She hates quaint.

"Cheers," the woman besides her says dryly, gaze flitting briefly across the space separating them and the other two. They've moved onto the kissing part of their little mating dance with surprising vigor. Regina is quick to look away, clinking her glass soundly against Maleficent's own and tipping it back.

Maleficent watches the movement of her old friend's throat as the woman swallows. It is strangely alluring; while she knows it must be the alcohol finally affecting her, she can't quite stop herself from staring. Regina doesn't seem to notice, and if she does, she spares Maleficent the embarrassment of saying so.

"I did miss you, Regina," she drawls nonchalantly, and decides seconds later when Regina looks up at her that she regrets it. She had not meant to say it at all, really; it had come out distantly. She had felt the weight of the words settle in her, in her mouth and throat and chest before and afterwards, but only when Regina looked up did she realize the wholeness of the situation. It is the truth, and she had not wanted to _say_ the truth. She rarely ever wants to say truthful things, after all. More often than not the truth burns, like a pit of fire deep inside of her, like her blood has turned to bubbling magma.

It's no different, even now.

To take away from the careful solemnity of the situation, she leans in and presses her mouth to the corner of Regina's; she's close enough to hear the inhale, a breath choked off sharply towards the end, and she breaks away when Cruella titters loudly amidst the sound of Ursula's whistle.

Maleficent pinches the bridge of her nose.

"How did you ever befriend those two without wanting to kill the both of them?" Regina mutters.

Maleficent grimaces. "Friends? Hardly," she says, and hates how it feels like a lie because somehow they _are_, somehow they _have_ become more than mere acquaintances and it is dangerous like befriending Regina had been dangerous and they too may betray her in the end and it will taste like defeat, like weakness, like _I knew that this was going to happen and I did not stop it_, just like it tasted when Regina took the curse from her that night. "I prefer the term _associates_."

She does, but that does not make the truth any less of a truth.

"Mm," mumbles Regina noncommittally as she refills her glass. There is no space left between them now; but it is not an uncomfortable feeling, being so close to someone else. When it comes to Regina, nothing is ever quite uncomfortable. Cruella has kissed her cheek and stroked her hair and pressed her lips chastely to Maleficent's own and those times — they had been discomfort, they had been some jittery feeling rising up inside of her making her want to flinch away.

She has never wanted to flinch away from Regina.

She is perhaps too lost in thought because when she returns to the present, when she is aware again, Cruella and Ursula are gone. Regina glances at her, and her voice seems soft and _something_ when she speaks. "They left. To do what, I don't even _want_ to imagine."

Maleficent's mouth twists. "No, you don't," she replies wryly, and the silence that falls over them is almost comfortable and yet not quite.

"For what it's worth, Mal, I missed you too," Regina speaks after what seems like minutes has passed, and Maleficent is so startled that she imagines it must show; on her face, in the thrumming of her heart in her chest. She is silent for a moment, thanking whatever deity she's never believed in that Regina cannot hear that heartbeat. _Mal_. Cruella and Ursula both call her that, but Regina had been the first one to do so — to hear it from her mouth for the first time in decades makes Maleficent _feel_ something.

She does so hate feeling things, so she smiles (it comes with an ease that isn't expected) and kisses Regina on the mouth just so that the maudlin flicker of that something inside of her will vanish. She will replace it with lust, with need, with more alcohol. With _anything_, so long as it does not return.

Regina kisses her back.

She thinks that it feels, for a moment, like victory.

And the feeling—oh, it only grows.


End file.
